I have an evil idea: #privacy activists could #occupy #Facebook’s Sponsored Stories ads.

Facebook is trying to mitigate how ticked off people are going to be when Sponsored Stories ads start appearing in people’s news streams, with a subtle little ad of their own at the top of the page.

It's adorable how proactive Facebook is being before the storm of anger over ads in news feeds https://t.co/65UiDLVu

December 21, 2011 9:05 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@EricaGlasier

Erica Glasier ♥

They’re anticipating the backlash & trying to gently implant the meme that “selling your private information is just the cost of using Facebook”.

It all sounds very reasonable. What exactly’s going to happen?

Your likes, posts, check-ins etc will become little ads for the brands you’re interacting with.

Facebook’s reality checking us in advance because they know people may react especially poorly to being featured in ads for businesses they don’t necessarily want to promote. And…

If people are angry the first thing they may do is unlike the brands that are using them. Besides removing the permission marketing channel created by likedom, this will no doubt create acrimony (or “a bad brand experience”) between people & the brands they formerly trusted.

But that’s Facebook’s problem. On to the evil idea.

Privacy Activists could jack sponsored stories

Here’s how I think it could work:

• Activist likes a brand & ‘publicly’ posts culture-jamming content on their wall or
• Activist @-mentions brand in a ‘public’ status update without liking
• Activist collective and/or friends of the activist ‘like’ the post a lot, to drive up its credibility
• The robots that select sponsored stories notice & repost as an ad
• A Skittles-level takeover of Sponsored Stories ensues.

Possible? It relies on mighty slack non-human CRM between Facebook & its customers, the advertisers—that is, nobody actually checking the content of the stories that algorithms think are relevant & popular. And it relies on non-anonymous collective action. But people have been in the mood to occupy lately, don’t you think?

Being neighbourly.

With fewer IRL friends than ever, it’s geting easy to skip the step where we’re pleasant to each other.

Do you forget to start your emails ‘n’ such with a pleasantry—heck, a greeting—and just get right down to your transaction? I do it on purpose sometimes, in the interest of reducing people’s attention overload. Greetings are now implied.

The immediate and often character-limited access we now have to each other—texting, IMing and DMing our way into each other’s lives—is almost designed to be abrupt.

Hi.

November 8, 2011 1:41 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@umairh

umair haque

I just wanted to say hi because it's weird how empty of "real" sociality "social" tech really is. So, I hope you're having a nice day.

November 8, 2011 1:45 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@umairh

umair haque

Hmm.

@umairh I assumed you botched a direct message ;) Hi!

November 8, 2011 1:45 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@EricaGlasier

Erica Glasier ♥

Perfectly reasonable. But asks: is our sociality being distorted? RT @EricaGlasier: @umairh I assumed you botched a direct message ;) Hi!

November 8, 2011 2:01 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@umairh

umair haque

I’ve met so many people on Twitter that I consider my ambient friends, but sometimes find my stream a fast and lonely place. Whoever’s there at the moment are the only people that “matter”, and conversations and connections evaporate. If you’re quiet for a day, no one seems to notice you’re gone. It reminds me of the sheer quantity & speed of humanity on a New York sidewalk.

So it’s nice—and surprisingly surprising—to just say ‘hi’ sometimes.

@pensato Good morning :)

November 14, 2011 10:10 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@EricaGlasier

Erica Glasier ♥

@EricaGlasier good morning! That was pleasant. :)

November 14, 2011 10:30 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@pensato

David Pensato ★

Ashton: just smart enough to know he’s not smart enough?

Backstory: Ashton Kutcher bumbles into a PR disaster via ill-informed tweet & subsequent perceived overreaction (said something dumb, decided to kinda quit social media for a bit til he recovers).

Why did Ashton temporarily drop out? 3 reasons why a very famous social tech investor would decide to stop expressing himself himself on Twitter:

1. Earnest Ashton feels the weight of his 8.3 million reach on Twitter & sincerely doesn’t want to spread misinformation.

2. Petulant Ashton has had enough self-inflicted humility and wants to stop getting yelled at by people less good looking and rich than he is.

3. Businessman Ashton recognizes that he’s damaging his brand when this kind of thing happens, and doesn’t want to risk getting fired from tv.

Turns out social media is hard. Opportunities to get eaten by crocodiles abound.

I'm just trying to be a good person.

November 10, 2011 9:35 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@aplusk

ashton kutcher

Sigh.

I’m not even going to link to accurate information about this. When is any message in ALL CAPS not nutty?

Hysterical delivery aside, why would Facebook reward you with a free membership if you warn others of the impending PRICE GRID by posting this as your status? And aren’t all the icons in Facebook already blue?

Sigh.

State of social sharing Summer 2011: people are still on Twitter. Solidly.

With the social media shakeup of recent weeks (G+ is great! LinkedIn is stupid! Klout is for a$$holes!) it’s time we all regroup, take a deep breath, and look at the data.

Mashable’s leaked iPhone 5 pics—sure to be a supertopic among techy, trendy, early-adopting social media peeps, our test audience—have garnered many a share since they came out 1 hour ago. And where are the socialites sharing said hardware porn?

On Twitter, friends. By a dramatic margin—a full 3/4 of shares. Despite Mashable’s sharing bias of highlighting G+.

Here’s that info restated as a hippocampus-friendly pie chart. Most of the pie is blue bird flavoured, and I think this represents the network zeitgeist as to where sharing has the most perceived value/enjoyment.

[Mashable can probably kill Google Buzz now, eh?]

Social technologies flatten culture, leading to multiple Thanksgivings & Canadian Black Friday.

If we were acquainted when I was furnishing my baby’s room, you know my deft eBaying  and Amazoning abilities. You also know my fury when confronted with absurd shipping charges and companies that “can’t” ship to Canada.

Online shopping is the lifeline of people in comprised retail situations (cough, Winnipeg, cough). And with Twitter flattening culture, Canadians (and I assume the world) are absorbing holidays, events, and national moods on a level never imagined by the CRTC. We’re basically going to do Thanksgiving twice this year because, I mean, why not?

When a giant American event like Black Friday goes down, the global marketing machine unavoidably affects the rest of us. And nothing ticks off a customer more than when major brands offer deals to some folks and not to us. (I’m talking to you, Best Buy. Shame on your $30-off iPods).

To combat the strong dollar’s pull on cross-border shoppers, some Canadian outposts are offering online Black Fridays. I expect this custom, along with double turkey days, the ability to enter contests, and watching tv online (yeah, we still kinda don’t have that) will only grow as online consumer’s dismay at being left out of cultural events—amplified by social media—becomes a customer service problem for big brands. We can hear everything you’re saying, guys.

Trendspotted: begging for votes IRL.

The pesky limitation of your “social graph” (friends list) is that it’s only so big, and you’re only so influential. Weed out the mandatory support of family members and coworkers, and you’re looking at a useless collection of lazy frenemies.

So where does that leave the unimportant, underfriended, or otherwise unpositioned-to-garner-a-lot-of-votes in today’s crowdsourced meritocracy/popularity contest?

Ye olde Handbill!

I got this one in my mailbox:

And this one was thrust into my hand by a jockular Blue Bomber in the mall:

I like it. It’s enterprising. When you run out of online acquaintances, take it to the street.